Tie-downs, or fabric straps with hooks attached to each end, commonly are used for fastening movable loads onto fixed or moving structures. For example, tie-downs can be used to secure a lawnmower or motorcycle onto a trailer or into the bed of a pickup truck. Each hook is engaged with or into an attachment structure connected with the trailer platform or the pickup bed. Rings and cleats are designed attachment structures for engaging tie down hooks. Other informal attachment structures such as rails, notches, and indentations, and even the edges of a trailer platform also may be used when a ring or a cleat is not convenient.
Particularly during the process of fastening a load onto a trailer, it is possible for the hook of a tie-down to disengage from the attachment structure. Often this happens as a user moves around the trailer to engage the other hook of the tie-down at the far side of the trailer. The result is that the user must go back and re-engage the first hook. For particularly awkward loads, re-engagement may be required more than once for more than one hook.
Tie-down hooks sometimes have been provided with permanently attached bails or latches, often spring loaded, that cause the hooks to “clip” onto a ring or cleat. Such spring loaded latches limit the range of attachment structure with which a hook may be used. In particular there can be a tendency for a spring loaded latch to shove its hook off of an informal attachment structure such as a trailer edge.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a tie-down hook include a latch or some other retaining structure that can hold the hook in place while a tie-down is being attached, but that does not detract from engaging the hook onto an informal structure.